On 29 Aug 2000, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Dan Sugalski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > It's not unreasonable to expect this sort of feature to possibly be used
> > for more esoteric extensions to the perl core or commonly and heavily
> > used extensions. I wouldn't, for example, want to always load in
> > DBD::Oracle or a full complex math library (complete with FFT and
> > gaussian filters) every time I was ripping through a text file.
>
> > If the feature exists as part of the design from the start, it puts
> > certain requirements for the lexer/parser and core interpreter that will
> > make modularizing things a neccessity and thus functional for those
> > situations where it is reasonable to do it.
>
> Yes, this part I agree with... it's pretty close to our current dynamic
> module system, though, isn't it? Or is it the on-demand part specifically
> that would be new?
It's the on-demand and 'use-less' part that's new, really. What I'm
thinking of specifically could be used to yank the functions out of the
base perl binary (which is sort of where it started) but doesn't actually
have to be used that way on any particular platform. (Or, rather, probably
will, but just reference a chunk of code already loaded in)
You also get the side-effect of being able to upgrade pieces of core perl
without having to upgrade the whole thing and, while I don't know that
that particular capability would be used much, it is a nice extra.
Dan
